Re: compressed release distribution formats (was: GNU Coding Standards, automake, and the recent xz-utils backdoor)

[Antonio Diaz Diaz]

Jacob Bachmeyer wrote:
> I would argue that GNU software should be consistently available in at
> least one format that can be unpacked using only tools that are also
> provided by the GNU project. I believe that currently means "gzip",
> unfortunately. We should probably look to adopt another one; perhaps the
> lzip maintainer might be interested?

I agree, and I am interested.

As far as I can remember, none of the GNU packages that have been 
distributing tarballs in .lz format for years have had any problems with the 
format. And nowadays even xz-utils can handle lzip files.

> But if tarlz is to be used to write the lzipped tarball, you probably
> want to settle for "same file contents", since tarlz only supports pax
> format and we may want to allow older tar programs to unpack GNU
> releases.

Tarlz produces ustar archives by default. (The pax format is an extension on 
top of the ustar format). Do we want to allow tar programs old enough as to 
not understand ustar format?

http://www.nongnu.org/lzip/manual/tarlz_manual.html#Amendments-to-pax-format
"5.3
The tarlz format is mainly ustar. Extended pax headers are used only when 
needed because the length of a file name or link name, or the size or other 
attribute of a file exceed the limits of the ustar format."

For the packages that I distribute in gz and lz formats, I create the 
tarball once, and then compress it once for each format, as you suggest. I 
use tarlz for this because it can also create uncompressed tarbals.

Antonio.